Any business that accepts bank cards for payment accepts some amount of risk that the transaction is fraudulent. However, for most merchants the benefits of acquiring bank cards outweigh any of the risks. Conventional “brick and mortar” merchants, as well as mail order and telephone order merchants, have enjoyed years of business expansion resulting from bank card acceptance, supported by industry safeguards and services that are designed to contain and control the risk of fraud.
Credit card transactions are being utilized in a variety of environments. In a typical environment a customer, purchaser or other user provides a merchant with a credit card, and the merchant through various means will verify whether that information is accurate. In one approach, credit card authorization is used. Generally, credit card authorization involves contacting the issuer of the credit card or its agent, typically a bank or a national credit card association, and receiving information about whether or not funds are available for payment and whether or not the card number is valid. If the card has not been reported stolen and funds are available, the transaction is authorized. This check results in an automated response to the merchant of “Issuer Approved” or “Issuer Denied.” If the merchant has received a credit card number in a “card not present” transaction, such as a telephone order or mail order, then the credit card authorization service is often augmented by other systems, but this is the responsibility of the individual merchant.
For example, referring now to FIG. 1, a typical credit card verification system 10 is shown. In such a system, a merchant 12 receives a credit card from the customer 14. The merchant then verifies the credit card information through an automated address verification system (“AVS”) 16. These systems work well in a credit card transaction in which either the customer has a face-to-face meeting with the merchant or the merchant is actually shipping a package or the like to the address of a customer.
The verification procedure typically includes receiving at the AVS system address information and identity information. AVS is currently beneficial for supporting the screening of purchases made by credit card customers of certain banks in the United States. In essence, the bank that issues a credit card from either of the two major brands (Visa or MasterCard) opts whether or not to support the AVS system. The AVS check, designed to support mail order and telephone order businesses, is usually run in conjunction with the bank card authorization request. AVS performs an additional check, beyond verifying funds and credit card status, to ensure that elements of the address supplied by the purchaser match those on record with the issuing bank. When a merchant executes an AVS check, the merchant can receive the following responses:
AVS=MATCH—The first four numeric digits of the street address, and the first five numeric digits of the ZIP code, and credit card number match those on record at the bank.
AVS=PARTIAL MATCH—There is a partial match (e.g., street matches but not ZIP code, or ZIP code matches but not street).
AVS=UNAVAILABLE—The system cannot provide a response. This result is returned if the system is down, or the bank card issuer does not support AVS, or the bank card issuer for the credit card used to purchase does not reside in the United States.
AVS=NON-MATCH—There is no match between either the address or ZIP data elements.
While most merchants will not accept orders that result in a response of “Issuer Denied” or “AVS=NON-MATCH,” the automated nature of an online transaction requires merchants to implement policies and procedures that can handle instances where the card has been approved, but other data to validate a transaction is questionable. Such instances include cases where the authorization response is “Issuer Approved,” but the AVS response is AVS=PARTIAL MATCH, AVS=UNAVAILABLE, or even AVS=MATCH. Thus, the purchaser's bank may approve the transaction, but it is not clear whether the transaction is valid.
Because a significant amount of legitimate sales are associated with AVS responses representing unknown levels of risk (or purchases made outside of the United States where AVS does not apply), it is critical to find ways to maximize valid order acceptance with the lowest possible risk. Categorically denying such orders negatively impacts sales and customer satisfaction, while blind acceptance increases risk. Further, even AVS=MATCH responses carry some risk because stolen card and address information can prompt the AVS=MATCH response.
To address these issues, merchants have augmented card authorization and AVS results with additional screening procedures and systems. One such additional procedure is to manually screen orders. While this approach is somewhat effective when order volume is low, the approach is inefficient and adds operating overhead that cannot scale with the business.
Electronic commerce or online commerce is a rapidly expanding field of retail and business-to-business commerce. In electronic commerce, a buyer or purchaser normally acquires tangible goods or digital goods or services from a merchant or the merchant's agent, in exchange for value that is transferred from the purchaser to the merchant. Electronic commerce over a public network such as the Internet offers an equal or greater business opportunity than conventional, brick-and-mortar business, but requires special precautions to ensure safe business operations. The technological foundation that makes e-shopping compelling—e.g., unconstrained store access, anonymity, shopping speed, and convenience—also provides new ways for thieves to commit credit card fraud.
When a transaction involves downloading information from an online service or the Internet, address and identity information are not enough to confidently verify that the customer who is purchasing the goods is actually the owner of the credit card. For example, an individual may have both the name and the address of a particular credit card holder and that information in a normal transaction may be sufficient for authorization of such a transaction. However, in an Internet transaction it is possible to obtain all the correct information related to the particular credit card holder through unscrupulous means, and therefore, carry out a fraudulent transaction.
Accordingly, what is needed is a system and method that overcomes the problems associated with a typical verification system for credit card transactions particularly in the Internet or online services environment. The system should be easily implemented within the existing environment and should also be straightforwardly applied to existing technology.
While not all merchants experience fraud, as it is highly dependent on the nature of the business and products sold, in one study the aggregate risk of fraud was found to range between 4% and 23% of authorized sales transacted, depending upon the lenience of the merchant's acceptance criteria. Because Internet transactions are classified as “Card Not Present” transactions under the operating rules of the major credit card associations, in most cases Internet merchants are liable for a transaction even if the acquiring bank has authorized the transaction. As a result, fraud has a direct and immediate impact on the online merchant.
Electronic commerce fraud is believed to be based largely on identity theft rather than stolen cards. Generally, in electronic commerce fraud that is based on identity theft, the legitimate cardholder does not detect or know that the identifying information or credit card account is being used illegally, until the cardholder reviews a monthly statement and finds fraudulent transactions. In contrast, in a stolen card case, the cardholder has lost possession of the card itself and usually notifies credit card company officials or law enforcement immediately. As a result, the impact of fraud is different in the electronic commerce context; it affects a merchant's operating efficiency, and possibly the merchant's discount rate and ability to accept credit cards.
In one approach, online merchants attempt to avoid this risk by declining all but the most safe orders, or by instituting manual screening methods. However, merchants using these approaches generally suffer business inefficiency and lost sales. These merchants turn away a significant portion of orders that could have been converted to sales, increase overhead costs, and limit business scalability. Thus both fraud and overly stringent methods or non-automated methods of protecting the business from fraud can negatively impact business operations.
Based on the foregoing, there is a clear need for an improved method and system for determining a fraud risk associated with an electronic commerce transaction
There is a need for a way to assist merchants in screening fraudulent Internet transactions by calculating and delivering a risk score in real time.
There is also a need for a way to detect a fraud risk associated with an electronic commerce transaction that is based on criteria unique to or specific to the electronic commerce environment and attuned to the kinds of attempts at fraud that are perpetrated by prospective buyers.
There is a specific need for a way to determine a fraud risk associated with an electronic commerce transaction that is useful in a computer-based merchant services system.